What happens when the concentration of a reactant is increased?

When the concentration of a reactant is increased in a chemical reaction, it can lead to the formation of more products. This occurs because the reaction will adjust to accommodate the change in concentration in order to re-establish equilibrium.

According to Le Chatelier's principle, when a system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, or pressure, it will shift in a direction that counteracts the change. In the case of increasing the concentration of a reactant, the system responds by producing more products in order to decrease the concentration of that reactant. This results in a greater formation of products until the system finds a new equilibrium state.

This behavior is fundamentally tied to the rate of the reaction; with more reactant available, the likelihood of successful collisions between reactant particles increases, thereby increasing the rate at which products are formed. The process continues until the equilibrium is re-established, at which point the concentrations of reactants and products will remain constant, though the amounts may differ from the original state.

In summary, increasing the concentration of a reactant leads to the formation of more products as the system seeks to restore equilibrium, making the statement that more products will be formed until equilibrium is re-established the correct answer.